One woman’s experience…..

(See the links below)

I detoxed in Lighthouse in Anaheim twice.
Sometime between 2013-2014.
Lucky for me I had a very light habit going on both times, otherwise who knows if I would have made it through.

The first time I was drunk when a woman picked me up and told my husband she as taking me to treatment. She left me on the side of the road for another woman to come get me. She said I threatened her.
I don’t remember. I might have been a drunk bitch and called her names but I don’t remember being violent.

When I woke up in Anaheim the next morning in the detox I didn’t remember the night before. I did remember calling my husband from the street somewhere in Orange County where she left me and it was dark.

But now I was “safe” in “treatment”. I just didn’t want him to worry.

It was a strange lock up. An apartment building all separated by gates and cage type wires. The apartment for females had 2 bedrooms and 1 shower and 1 toilet I believe. Roaches too. Ughh.

It was so hot in august and the a/c would not kick in. The men were just next to us separated by this cage where they would smoke and the stuff would discourage the females and males talking through the cage but there were a couple of younger guys who did anyways.
The women in my bedroom (3 beds) were 35-45 year old mothers and almost every night I would wake up to sex noises.
The guys would somehow jump that cage/fence and would be in our bedroom and I would see both beds next to mine occupied by 2 people in each bed.

Imagine 110 F August California heat and them screwing in all that sweat… ugh 🤦‍♀️

I was just walked into the little office area twice a day to get my strip of suboxone. Never seen any kind of doctor or anything.

The girls who worked there were my only source of getting better. One had 1 year clean she just celebrated. She was a Middle aged lady who dressed like a 14 year old boy and used that slang like “deadass” and other words that teenagers use. Lol. The other one had 9 months clean and she was in her 20s and was just very quiet.

When I was finished with my detox a program by the name of A Better Tomorrow came to pick me up (they used to be known by the name of Frontier of Murrieta CA, but had to change their name because of some kind of fraud) they drove me out of Anaheim (Orange County) to Murrieta (Riverside county) and checked me into this office building where we would have the groups.

A Better Tomorrow consisted of 5-6 houses 🏠 that looked lot like sober livings but there were not because you could not leave.
I believe A Better Tomorrow in Murrieta might no longer be in business because they had deaths in their care.

I was in one of the houses for 30 days. We had a “mama” – a live in manager lady who would be responsible for giving us the meds and making us dinner sometimes.
Every morning we would be bussed to AA meeting, then to the office building for groups and then back to the house to help eat and get ready to be bussed to an evening AA meeting.

Apparently they had a “detox” house. Most patients would go to this house when they would first get off the plane ✈️ and detox.

The reason why I skipped that was because I already detoxed in Lighthouse in Anaheim.

But I did end up having to go to the detox house for 3 days because I had a cold.

This place was even worse than Lighthouse. I remember one girl who flew from New Jersey being so sick (dope sick, in need of detox medicine) and the “mama” of the “detox” house telling her that there was nothing they could do till the next day for some reason.

I was furious. At this point I was already 100 % clean and my apartment was in Temecula (10 miles away) that I went to that lady and told her that she better make something happen for this girl or I was gonna call my husband and we would take her to emergency room tonight.
Guess what? It actually worked and they “called in” what they call “comfort meds” for that girl.
I don’t know if I was in my right to do that or not but I followed my heart and imagined being across the country sick as a dog after all the promises they made for her and now they are telling her there is nothing they can do medically for her.

Anyways, that’s just some of my memories of their detox. You can exclude that if you want. I had to go back to my house after that lol. I guess they didn’t like what I did. But the girl ended up moving after her 7 days in the detox house into another house and she was thanking me a lot.

The second time I went to Lighthouse in Anaheim I was the only female client there. I was the only head in the bed.
I sat in that apartment for 7 days watching TV alone and would lock all the locks at night because I was scared because I knew how guys can jump over those fences and cages from my first time there.

I think one evening they must have forgotten about me being there. Like they didn’t come in at all to check on me. There was Gatorade and TV dinners and roaches.

They would usually give me my meds 9am and 9pm. Since I was the only female they would walk me to the office room with males and sit us in the chairs to wait our turn.

I was watching the clock and it got to be 9:45 pm and I started panicking because it all got quite and dark on that side.

So I went to the cage where an older gentleman was smoking a cig and asked him if he could get someone from the stuff to come. And he did. They didn’t give me much of a reason but after that they would come check on me more often. By the 6th day I was hating being alone in that apartment.
I was actually looking forward for someone to come in. A couple of girls did but that was my last day.

The plan was the same. I was to be picked up and go to A Better Tomorrow.
By then I already knew what ABT could and couldn’t do for me.
For $30 thousand I can take myself to 2 meetings a day.
The reason why I know the number is because the first time I went it was such a mess with getting them paid. For some reason the insurance company sent us a check in my husbands name because he was the policy holder and he had to personally take it to ABT and sign it to them.

Once we got to ABT this time we actually had a meeting with their people and my husband. Before they had a chance to get in his ear I took advantage of just a few seconds they allowed us to hug and I whispered to him “please, please don’t leave me here, I promise to stay clean and go to meetings and get therapy, I beg of you” and it seemed like they immediately jumped on it and separated us.

We sat at a table in this business building and I decided that I will openly explain to them that if I want to use I will use and there is not much their program can change.
I explained that I can take myself to that exact meetings they would take us to.

They were getting very angry because they were grasping at straws to convince me and him why I should go to their house and how it’s worth 30 thousand.

My husband is a logical person and he agreed with me. They were starting to like almost bully him and saying that he made them a promise and they had an agreement.
This made him kind of laugh a little and he told me he was taking me home.
I stayed clean and sober for 2 years and 7 months after that. Author Anonymous.